Another Dungeon

~

It was now a month since humanity had received the message from the gods.

Ky and Ariel were still the only humans in San Jose, California as far as they knew.

They received daily updates from the Stewart family that was in the nearby military base taking shelter, but not much had changed.

The only thing that did change was the amount of monsters and their level.

Around a week ago it started getting harder for Ariel and Ky to defeat the monsters in their area.

They were much stronger than they were before, but the monsters were as well.

When they weren't fighting monsters the duo was training.

They weren't able to increase their attack ranges or decrease their casting time still, but both had improved by leaps and bounds in control and normal fighting.

When they would spar, it now lasted at least 5 minutes per round.

This was much longer than their initial fights that would only last a few seconds at most.

They had enough control over their bodies and weapons now to be able to use their real weapons during their sparring times, but they still abstained from doing so. They were still too cautious and didn't want to seriously injure the other person by accident.

They even started using their mana when sparring.

This made it much harder for both of them as they had to have their mana ready to deflect the attacks of the other person.

In order to circumvent the issue of a 5 second casting time, they would make their mana spread and flow throughout their body constantly.

This didn't waste any unnecessary mana because when the fight was over they could just return the unused mana back to their core, but it did tire them out much quicker.

Circulating mana throughout the body takes not only mental but physical strain as well, especially because Ariel and Ky were not able to instinctively do these things just yet.

They still had to be actively thinking about their mana and giving it instructions or it would disperse.

"Hey Ariel, I think we should do something about the monsters in this city. The amount of hobgoblins are starting to increase and I don't want us to get overrun one day."

"Agreed." She responded.

It was 8 am so they would have plenty of time to clear out a big area from monsters.

Before they left Ky decided to check his stats.

'Open Interface.'

[Race: Human

Name: Kyden Price

Rank: Rank 0

Divinity: Seed of Primogenitor Divinity (Ouranos)

Total Stat Points: 85

Available Stat Points: 3

STR: 17

AGI: 17

DEF: 17

INT: 17

STA: 17

Skills: Stealth (1), Mana Sense (8), Mana Manipulation (7), Mana Reinforcement (9), Mana Assimilation (2), Wind Manipulation (9)]

'My stats haven't changed much even though we have been fighting many goblins and hobgoblins throughout the week.'

'Sigh.'

The lack of diversity in the monsters around Ariel's neighborhood was starting to affect the duo.

They still received points from killing the monsters, but it was very negligible.

To increase their stats again they needed to find a different type of monster to hunt, so clearing out the city of monsters would help them with this if the city had other kinds of monsters as well.

"Ready?" Ariel asked.

They were now standing in her front yard with their weapons in hand.

Ky nodded.

They both spread out their mana sense as far as possible.

"I'm seeing something near the beach."

"Ky, there's a huge cluster in the west."

They said it simultaneously.

Previously they didn't sense what they were picking up now because their mana sense range had increased by a lot over the past few weeks, and there was no need to constantly spread it to its limits.

Not to mention the mental strain they would experience from having their mana sense extended as far as possible for even 10 minutes, much less all the time.

"Do you want to check it out?" Ariel asked.

"Sure, let's put our hunting journey on hold and go see what it is."

Ariel opened her garage and got into her 2021 Mustang.

Ky got into the passenger seat and shut the door.

Ariel started the car and zoomed out of her neighborhood and turned the car to the left, heading west.

After only a minute of speeding down the street, Ariel had to slow down to go around a cluster of cars that was stopped in the middle of the road.

Ky rolled down the window on his side of the car.

"What are you doing?" She asked him.

He smirked before saying, "Just watch."

He churned the mana in his core and sent it to his right hand and released it when Ariel got close enough to the cars.

A strong gust of wind shot out from Ky's outstretched hand. It moved in an arc towards the side of the cars.

Boom!!

The wind slammed into the line of cars and pushed them to the left side of the road and some onto the sidewalk.

Ky, with the smirk still on his face, turned to look at Ariel without saying anything.

She rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh.

"You're not the only one who can do that pretty boy, I just didn't think of it."

"Uh huh." He said smugly with the smirk still on his face.

Ariel let out another sigh, but continued driving.

They then took turns moving the cars out of the road when they needed to.

Ariel didn't have to slow down as much because of this, so it only took around 30 minutes to get close to the big cluster of mana the duo detected.

Ariel brought the car to the entrance to the beach and parked it.

"Looks like it's either on the beach or in the water." Ky pointed out the obvious.

The duo walked towards the gates that led to the beach.

Ky unlocked it and swung it open, "Lady's first.", He said while gesturing for Ariel to walk through the gate.

"Hehe." She giggled in response.

Ky took his socks and shoes off so they wouldn't get sand in them that he would later have to get out.

The sand was hot, but felt nice in between his toes.

"Ky…" Ariel mumbled.

"Huh?"

He looked up because Ariel was tapping his shoulder, "Oh…"

"Is that what I think it is?" He asked.

"I think so…"

Hovering above the sand about 15 meters away from them was something very odd.

It looked like a big ball of light blue mana.

The radius was around 10 meters in diameter so it was large, and it was floating a meter or so off the ground.

There were strings of mana all around it that were being sucked into the ball with great force.

'As a video game and light novel enthusiast I can't imagine that being anything other than a dungeon entrance or something.'

Ky assumed it was a dungeon because of his fantasy video games and books.

He never got to see the entrance to the Ouranos dungeon because his plane accidentally flew into it, and Ouranos teleported him out of the dungeon after giving Ky his divinity.

If he hadn't teleported him out of the dungeon he would have had to walk through the exit and would find himself in a perilous situation.

The dungeon entrance was in the sky, and the exit would lead him through the same place as the entrance, meaning he would appear 10.6 km (35,000 feet) in the air.

At the time Ky had no control over his mana much less his wind attribute, so there would have been no way to stop or slow his fall to the ground.

He would most likely survive as he is now, but he would not be left without a few injuries.

Ariel however, did see the entrance and exit to the dungeon she entered.

The entrance to Gaea's dungeon looked very similar to what they were looking at right now.

The difference was that the current dungeon entrance was much bigger and a different color than Gaea's dungeon.

Gaea's dungeon entrance looked like a big ball of brown mana.

Ariel didn't originally mean to enter the dungeon, but as a very curious person she couldn't stop herself from touching the weird looking mana.

She also didn't play many video games or read many light novels like Ky did, so she was ignorant of the standard fantasy tropes.

When she was sucked into the dungeon she was left without an exit.

The only way to exit the dungeon after entering was to find the exit, which was in Gaea's lair, or to have Gaea herself teleport the person out of the dungeon.

"It's a dungeon or something right?" Ky asked.

"I'm almost certain it is. It does look a little bit different from the entrance to Gaea's dungeon though." Ariel almost mumbled her response.

They were both still very surprised as they didn't expect to see another dungeon entrance.

"What should we do?" Ariel asked.

"I say we go in. It might be another divinity dungeon, or it might be a normal one. Either way I think it would be beneficial to enter."

This was a very naive thought. Ky wasn't even considering the potential danger of the dungeon. He had no clue what was awaiting them in the dungeon. They could get themselves killed instantly.

The problem was that Ariel was also ignorant of these things, and decided to silently put her trust in Ky.

"Okay." She said.

"Let's get some supplies from your house first."

~

An hour later the duo returned with backpacks on.

The bags contained extra clothes for both hot and cold situations, extra food, and things like lighters and tarp for tents.

"Let's go together." Ky said, grabbing Ariel's soft hands.

"3. 2. 1." She counted down, and on one they both jumped into the mana cluster.

[You have entered one of Earth's Western Labyrinth's]

…

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Thank you to Tiana_Taylor_9894 (Nice name lol) for the power stone yesterday and anyone else who has or will vote power stones to this novel!

The support has been really good on this novel and it makes me really happy to see that people may be enjoying reading it.

Also, this was the end of the first Arc. Can you guys guess the name of the next volume?

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